Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1337 The Weight of Knowledge (4k)

The main issue is that the source is a bit unsettling. At least the comrades at the Naval Equipment Bureau know that Gao Zhendong had not participated in any work related to hovercraft before this. Moreover, although we developed the prototype of hovercraft quite early, it does not mean that there were many foreign achievements to refer to before that.

Because when it comes to hovercrafts, we were among the first to get started but ended up being late to the party.

The reason for arriving late, besides issues such as materials, apron design, and engine, is something that Gao Zhendong just mentioned that made everyone's scalp tingle—theory!
Zhang and Wang, who were working on hovercraft, might not be aware of this theory, but the comrades at the Naval Equipment Bureau were quite clear about it—this thing had been around for at least a month, if not days.

In such a short period of time, he came up with a theory that his comrades had not been able to solve since the late 50s.

Regardless of whether this theory is perfect or not, at least it is clear that it is a complete and systematic set of rules, which is quite remarkable.

Those who conduct research know that even if something is fabricated, it is no easy feat to create a logically consistent and systematic theory. In fact, fabricating something is even more difficult, since it involves creating something out of nothing. The most widely circulated example of this is what Lord of the Rings fans still talk about decades later: Tolkien was able to create a language out of thin air.

Furthermore, Chief Engineer Gao would never fabricate something; he has a reputation to maintain. The reason why many people prefer to hire established individuals for certain tasks is that, in addition to ability and experience, established individuals need to protect their image and have certain concerns.

The two comrades who were working on hovercraft reacted much more directly, just like many comrades in other professional fields in China at the time, who felt that the world had long been suffering from theoretical problems.

"Really? Chief Engineer Gao, where is your masterpiece?" The comrades didn't bother with formalities. Since Chief Engineer Gao had brought this up, he was bound to teach them how to learn.

Gao Zhendong took out a paper document from the bag he had brought into the meeting room: "It's all here..."

It wasn't that he was unwilling to take out tapes or disks, but the National Defense Committee had given him instructions: "Zhendong, when giving materials to comrades, try to provide paper documents as much as possible..."

The reason is simple: paper documents are difficult to copy and not easy to circulate.

Although electronic files can be encrypted, key management has always been a weak link. The National Defense Committee does not want to take any risks, especially for materials that have been leaked from comrades like Gao Zhendong. No amount of strictness is too much. So they can only make things difficult for the comrades who use these materials. It's just a little troublesome to copy them.

Besides, can you just copy this kind of material whenever you want? The more troublesome, the better! Anyway, printed materials still have advantages over electronic files when reading. This is true not only now, but even in the 21st century, people still prefer to read printed documents when they are seriously reading books.

The two comrades took the document into their hands and immediately felt its weight.

Wow! That's quite substantial! It seems Chief Engineer Gao has put a lot of effort into this. Although we don't know why he's putting so much effort into it, both comrades now deeply feel the weight of knowledge!

At least two pounds!

The prints on A16 paper are heavier than those printed normally, not to mention that Gao Zhendong uses high-grammage, high-quality paper, making them even heavier.

At this moment, they became even more curious about what Chief Engineer Gao had written inside, and why this knowledge was so important!
Gao Zhendong: Actually, it has nothing to do with me. It's you guys who work on hovercraft that have written too much about it in the last twenty years or so.

Upon opening the table of contents, the two comrades were overjoyed, like Sun Wukong finally getting his hands on the golden cudgel. Just one table of contents was enough to make them realize that this amount of knowledge was indeed extraordinary.

The book contains over a dozen chapters and several hundred pages, covering topics such as lift theory, water attitude, drag analysis, stability, maneuverability, and aprons.

To what extent is it detailed? For example, the analysis of resistance here, judging from the table of contents, lists more than ten sources of resistance, and each source is given a certain amount of space. The two comrades haven't had time to read what's in those sections yet, but they believe that Chief Engineer Gao couldn't possibly have written some doggerel in the book; every word is absolutely useful.

To be honest, they absolutely refused to believe that this was something Gao Zhendong had only recently created, given the sheer quantity.

But then I thought about it again. This Chief Engineer Gao is a fluid mechanics expert, so he might be able to explain it a little. Maybe there are many things here that he has studied when he was researching fluid mechanics before. It's just that he just needs to recalculate them for the special application of hovercraft. And when it comes to calculations, with computers, there is no shortage of computing power to calculate these things. Not to mention that this Chief Engineer Gao looks like the kind of person who can mobilize computing power.

But the comrades from the Naval Equipment Bureau had a different feeling about this matter. They had seen it many times, gotten used to it, or even become numb to it.

While one reason for this is that they lacked in-depth research on these things and didn't have a direct understanding of the difficulty and time involved, the main reason was that they had seen too many similar cases with Gao Zhendong.

There's still time for him to write it down slowly, it's not a big deal. It's not uncommon for him to spend only a few tens of minutes in a meeting, from understanding the problem to solving it.

The two comrades looked up after only flipping through the table of contents: "Chief Engineer Gao, could we go back and study your masterpiece first, and then visit you again in a few days to ask for your advice? The content here is so rich that we probably won't even be able to point out anything we don't understand in a short time."

Anyone who has done research knows that being able to clearly identify "what you don't understand" is already a sign of ability, at least indicating that you've entered the basics. This level requires time and practice to reach, and the most typical example of this is mathematics. Don't talk about whether you understand it or not; that's overthinking it. If you can understand a problem in its entirety, you can stump more than 99% of the world's population.

"On a nonsingular complex projective algebraic variety, any Hodge class is a rational linear combination of algebraically closed classes." Frankly, Gao Zhendong couldn't understand what this problem actually entailed. This is also why there are fewer people spouting nonsense in mathematics compared to perpetual motion machines in physics—if you can't understand it, you can't spout nonsense. Of course, Goldbach's Conjecture is an exception; thanks to Professor Chen's achievements, this mathematical problem has been introduced most comprehensively in China, and some of its descriptions are quite simple.

Therefore, what these two comrades said was very pragmatic. They probably wouldn't have been able to raise any questions about this knowledge without spending some time on it. It's better to observe for a longer period, raise questions collectively, and try to resolve them all at once, so as not to waste Chief Engineer Gao's time.

Judging from Chief Engineer Gao's work ethic and abilities, it's obvious that the two of them can't keep coming to look for people every few days. Putting aside everything else, the very question of "whether they can even find them" is a huge doubt.

Gao Zhendong wasn't worried about being stumped by their questions. After all, he had studied fluid mechanics quite a bit over the years, and he was also quite intelligent. He had spent a considerable amount of time studying this material after it was extracted, and he figured he was capable of helping his colleagues in the early stages of the research.

“Okay, you don’t need to rush. Anyway, I’m right here, I can’t run away, and I can come anytime,” Gao Zhendong said with a smile. Engineer Zhang thought for a moment and said, “How about this? I just browsed the table of contents of your book, and the professional scope is a bit too broad, exceeding the professional scope of both of us. We might as well go back to the Northeast, organize relevant colleagues to study it properly, and then gather the questions and ask you for advice via email.”

The two of them are in charge of the overall picture, not the whole picture, and no one can possibly be in charge of the whole picture anyway. Therefore, much of the knowledge in this material can only be understood by colleagues from other disciplines. It would be too unscientific for the two of them to bring the entire research group to Beijing.

Zhang's arrangement is indeed scientific. Knowledge can be taught verbally, not necessarily through personal example. Email becomes much more valuable in this case, as it has a large capacity, rich presentation, and is quick and convenient.

The speed at which knowledge is disseminated is also an important indicator of social development, but in modern times, convenient access to knowledge often makes people forget this.

Gao Zhendong nodded: "Okay! Do whatever is convenient for you. Email is indeed much more convenient. Otherwise, you might not be able to find me in a few days, which would delay your business."

The comrades left the reception room and met up with the two guards who had been left at the entrance of the Third Factory.

Upon seeing the spoils in Zhang and Wang's hands and their expressions, the two guards asked, "Comrades, have you obtained any documents or items here?"

Zhang Gong didn't react immediately: "Um, right. We..."

The security officer raised his hand, stopping Zhang Gong from continuing his rambling: "Sir, you don't need to tell us the rest. It's like this: according to regulations, in this situation, both of you need to come back to the committee with us. The materials must be recorded and processed according to regulations, and the security level for the two of you on your way back to the unit will also be upgraded."

Zhang and Wang exchanged a glance. They had never seen such a novel regulation before, and today was truly an eye-opener for them. At this moment, they felt that the weight of the two pounds of knowledge in their hands had increased by at least eight ounces.
-
After seeing them off, Gao Zhendong went home from get off work. As soon as he opened the door, Gao Changhe rushed up, brandishing a wooden knife in his right hand and a 12.7mm bullet casing in his left, shouting "Heh heh!! Haha!!" Behind him was his sister, who was poking his butt with a wooden rifle.

Gao Zhendong picked up Gao Changhe, thus escaping his sister's clutches. However, Gao Changhe was clearly unhappy about this and struggled to jump down while laughing.

On the contrary, as soon as Gao Changying saw her father return home, she threw down her wooden rifle and rushed over to cling to Gao Zhendong's other hand. Gao Zhendong laughed and picked her up as well, carrying both of them on his shoulders to go find Lou Xiao'e.

"Get down, get down, don't bother your dad. He just got off work and he's tired." Lou Xiao'e shooed the two little kids down, but Gao Zhendong smiled and said it was fine.

Lou Xiao'e didn't insist; Gao Zhendong was happy as long as he was happy.

As she placed the food on the table, she smiled and said, "Guess what we discovered today?"

"Have you figured out...where can you find out exactly what this 10,000-23 thing you have in your hands is?"

Gao Zhendong almost blurted out "decanovancomycin," but thankfully he quickly and awkwardly changed the subject. At that time, there was no such thing as decanovancomycin; it was still about 20 years before it was officially named.

The earliest name for vancomycin on this line of research was probably given by Lou Xiao'e and her team. Since she hasn't mentioned anything about it, the name absolutely cannot come out of Gao Zhendong's mouth.

Lou Xiao'e placed the wine glass in front of Gao Zhendong and shook her head, saying, "No, but it's almost there, even a step further than you said! We can basically confirm that Vancomycin-23 has one less methyl group than imported vancomycin!"

So fast? This was somewhat unexpected for Gao Zhendong.

"Really? How did you find out?" For Gao Zhendong, how he found out wasn't important. What mattered was maximizing Lou Xiao'e's emotional value, and asking this question hit Lou Xiao'e right where it hurt.

"We discovered that the molecular weight of Van-23 is about 14 less than that of imported Van-23. Then, together with the colleagues from the Applied Chemistry Department you introduced, we determined the molecular formula of Van-23 and found that it has exactly one more carbon and two more hydrogens than imported Van-23! If we subtract the hydrogen atom that was replaced by the methyl group, there is a very high probability that the difference between Van-23 and imported Van-23 is just one methyl group!"

The line of thought is very clear!

No wonder it was so fast; it turns out they didn't tackle the tough issue of the structural formula, but instead started with the molecular weight and molecular formula to analyze and speculate on the situation of Wan-23.

While it cannot be 100% certain, it is convincing enough.

"Then could you call this vancomycin?" Gao Zhendong asked with a smile.

Lou Xiao'e shook her head: "We didn't discover this thing. What you said isn't very accurate. Besides, we're not planning to continue investigating it."

Gao Zhendong was somewhat surprised: "Huh? It was just one step away from completion, and you're giving up?"

Lou Xiao'e nodded and said, "Yes, let's stop! We've already proven that Vancomycin and Van-23 are two different antibiotics, and that's enough. Your conjecture is correct."

"But if we finish the research, we can obtain a new type of antibiotic that is not restricted by foreign patents, right?" Gao Zhendong said with a smile.

"Of course we won't forget that, so we've decided to hand over the rest of the work to the comrades who discovered Wan-23! Professor Qi has already contacted them, and they're preparing to form a joint working group with us to take over our remaining work." Lou Xiao'e had a charmingly naive expression that said, "We're not stupid."

(End of this chapter)